Facts

The University of California at San Diego has managed a research center known as the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study since 1991 under a cooperative agreement with the National Institute on Aging (NIA) which is an agency of the federal government and one of the National Institutes of Health. The research study had about 80 employees, including six faculty members, overseen by Dr. Paul Aisen and served as the Data Coordinating Center for a consortium of approximately 70 academic medical centers, research clinics, and participating sites in the United States and Canada that deploy their resources and efforts to facilitate the testing of new drugs and therapies for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, with funding provided by public and private research sponsors.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS: In June, 2015, defendants Aisen and the University of Southern California (USC) attempted to force the "institutional transfer" of the research study and all of its funding from the University of California to USC, without seeking or obtaining the consent of UC or the NIA as required by well-settled standards governing human-subject research at academic institutions in the United States. In addition, Aisen and USC took unauthorized control over the UC computer system that collected clinical research data in violation of California Penal Code Section 502(c), and interfered with UC's contractual relationships with funding sponsors and employees.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS: After years of frustration with UCSD's failure to adequately support Alzheimer's research, Dr. Aisen and a number of his staff members made plans to leave the ADCS to start USC ATRI, a new research center for Alzheimer's disease. When UCSD discovered these plans but before anyone had resigned, it retaliated by cutting off Dr. Aisen electronic access to the studies that he oversees, an action which an NIA representative described as "putting trial participants and trial integrity at risk" and "unethical." UCSD also defamed Dr. Aisen, calling him a criminal, in effort to deter staff and sponsors from following his lead and moving to USC ATRI

Result

Plaintiffs' attorneys at Crowell & Moring obtained a preliminary injunction early in the case to restore control of the ADCS's electronic data capture system ("EDC") to UC "consistent with the terms of the contracts and grants to which UCSD is a party." Because UC invoked federal copyright law as a basis for the preliminary injunction. Defendants, then represented by Quinn Emanuel, removed the case to federal court. The case was litigated there for three years, during which Defendants defeated UC's motion for contempt sanctions and obtained an order to clarify or modify the preliminary injunction in light of the fact that most of the major study sponsors had chosen to end their contracts with UC and have USC manage their data being held in the EDC going forward. In 2018, the Crowell & Moring team won a remand motion sending the case back to state court and instituted proceedings to hold USC in contempt of the injunction and to apply the crime/fraud exception to the attorney-client communications between USC and its counsel relating to the unauthorized use of UC San Diego's computer system. Defendants filed an anti-SLAPP motion in response, which was granted. A trial date was set for August 2019 but the parties reached a settlement. USC agreed to make a public statement that it regretted the manner in which Dr. Aisen and the ADCS staff left UCSD and that its actions fell short of the ethical standards that it expects from its faculty, administration, and staff. USC also agreed to pay UC $50 million. USC will continue to manage the studies for those study sponsors who terminated their contracts with UC and entered into new ones with USC.